Structured Programming and Applications for Building and

Civil Engineers

Lecture 3
by
Dr. Emre Erkmen, P.Eng.

Assistant Professor, Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering,

Concordia University, Montreal

Office: EV 6.209
Phone:514 848 2424
Email: emre.erkmen@Concordia.ca
Lecture hours: Mondays 13:15-16:00
Office hours: Tuesdays 10:00-11:00

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Outline of Today’s Lecture

Introduction to Matlab Programming

- Customized Plots

- Input/Output with Load and save

- User defined functions

- Selection Statements
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Customized Plots in Matlab

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Input/Output

In many cases, input to a script will come from a data file that has been created by
another source. Also, it is useful to be able to store output in an external file that
can be manipulated and/or printed later.

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Writing data to a file

 Write

 Append

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Read data

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Matlab programs vs. Matlab functions

• Functions can be flexibly called in a code or on the prompt line,

programs normally cannot
• Functions need to have inputs and outputs, programs do not
• A program can include a number of functions, functions can
also include number of other functions but should be linked to
one another through inputs and outputs. Programs can be
absolutely standalone and independent. Functions normally
cannot, at least in the sense that they need inputs.

For simplicity, consider functions as mini-programs

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Example of Built-in functions in Matlab

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User defined functions that return a single value

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Example user-defined functions in Matlab

All functions have their own workspace.

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Calling a function

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Standardization of function introduction

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Functions with multiple arguments

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Functions with local variables

In many cases calculation in a function require extra variables

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Additional notes

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Programming Guidelines

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Selection statements

• In the scripts and functions we’ve seen thus far every statement was executed
in sequence. This is not always desirable.

• We need a mechanism with which we can make choices as to whether

statements are executed or not, and how to choose between or among
statements.

• The statements that accomplish this are called conditional, selection or

branching statements.

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The “IF” statement

The script between keywords “if” and “end”

will be skipped, unless the condition is satisfied

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The “IF-ELSE” statement

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Nested “IF-ELSE” statement

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The “IF-ELSEIF-ELSE” statement

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The “SWITCH-CASE-OTHERWISE” statement

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The “IS” function

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